BC Climate: Summaries and long term trends

Author
Affiliation

Aseem Sharma e-mail: aseem.sharma@gov.bc.ca

Future Forest Ecosystems Centre, FCCSB, OCF, BC Ministry of Forests

Published

November 10, 2023

1 September-2023 climate summary

  • September-2023 was warmer than normal for most of BC except Vancouver Island and South coastal region.
  • September-2023 was relatively drier than normal with most of BC exhibiting below normal precipitation, relative humidity and soil moisture.
  • The average of previous 12 months climate parameters indicate that BC experienced drier and warmer climate then normal between August 2022 and September 2023.
  • The mean September temperature in BC is increasing significantly since 1950 at the rate of 0.02°C per year.
  • The long-term trends indicate that BC experienced an increase in total precipitation and relative humidity but decrease in soil moisture content likely due to increased temperature and VPD.

Below you find the spatial anomalies and long term trend of air temperature, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), total monthly precipitation, relative humidity (RH), and volumetric soil moisture (0 - 1m depth) for the month of September-2023.

2 Mean temperature and vapor pressure deficit (VPD)

2.1 Anomaly: September-2023

Figure 1: Anomalies in mean temperature and VPD for September 2023 relative to climate average of September 1981 - 2010.

2.2 Last 12 months anomaly: August 2022 to September 2023

Figure 2: Average anomalies in mean temperature and VPD for August 2022 to September 2023 relative to climate average of 1981 - 2010 .

3 Precipitation, Relative Humidity (RH) and soil moisture

3.1 Anomaly: September-2023

Figure 5: Anomalies in total precipitation, relative humidity and volumetric soil mositure (0-1m) for September 2023 relative to climate average of September 1981 - 2010.

3.2 Last 12 months anomaly: August 2022 to September 2023

Figure 6: Anomalies in total precipitation, relative humidity and volumetric soil moisture (0-1m) for August 2022 to September 2023 relative to climate average of 1981 - 2010.